Violence flares as Orange Order demands right to march in Catholic area

This year, widespread rioting by Loyalist took place in Belfast after they were stopped from marching close to a Catholic area in Ardoyne, North Belfast.
Photo by: Pacemaker

Earlier in the week Stevenson, joined by the leaders of the Orange Order in Scotland and England, told crowds in Derry that loyalists faced an almost daily onslaught on their British culture and heritage.

‘Not content having subjected this province to terror and mayhem through a murderous campaign, and trying their best to rewrite history in an attempt to justify their vile actions, republicans are now engaging in a cultural war to erode all symbols of Britishness from this part of the United Kingdom,’ he said.

‘The shameful decision to strip down the Union Flag from Belfast City Hall, following on from the outrageous naming of a children's play park in Newry after an IRA terrorist, are just some examples of the so-called 'shared future' envisaged by Sinn Fein.’

Stevenson also expressed his strong opposition to the proposed construction of a conflict resolution centre at the former Maze prison which housed paramilitaries near Belfast.

‘We will simply not countenance the very real prospect of a terrorist shrine manifesting itself at the very site where those who inflicted nothing but anguish and sorrow upon the law-abiding majority were quite rightly incarcerated for their horrific crimes,’ he said.